Linas Linkevičius: In Fact, Belarus Is Part Of Russia’s Armed Forces

At the NATO summit in Warsaw the head of the Foreign Affairs Ministry reminded that Lukashenka’s regime is integrated in the military block with Russia.

Linas Linkevičius said so answering the question of the editor-in-chief of charter97.org Natallia Radzina.

“Belarus is our neighbour, close neighbour. We are not indifferent to how do things stand in Belarus. We wish Belarusians the very best, and want Belarus to become more European, more pro-European state.

Unfortunately, not everything runs smoothly. We also have some problems. We often listen about the nuclear power plant built by the Belarusian authorities in violation of agreed standards of international law. Thus, there are aspects in which we are going to continue exerting influence on the Belarusian authorities.

However, in general we would like to see changes, at least, not to see the return to the situation we had some time ago. I mean political prisoners. Definitely, improvement should take place, and we would be very happy to help in that respect,” – Linas Linkevičius said.

– Mister Minister, NATO generals had been regularly stating that there is a threat of invasion of Lithuania from the direction of Belarus. Have this question been discussed at the NATO summit?

– Well, we are not going to discuss that in such terms that Belarus could attack… We understand perfectly well that Belarus is highly integrated with Russia. In fact, we should view it as an integral part of the Russian army, military forces. So in this regard, when risks and threats are assessed, that’s what is meant certainly.